Opinions On This Article I Found About The Zero

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Notice how I used the word "developed from" in several of those sentences?

So in essence, you're saying that the Fw190D would be an entirely new airplane, then?

And the P-40 would be comparable to the Fw190D in it's development - they were not clean sheet designs.

The FM-1 was vastly improved over the F4F-3 much like the A6M5 was vastly improved over the A6M2.

With the P-63, it was developed from the XP-39E - so no, it was not a clean-sheet.
 
The claim I responded to was that the A6M was a dead end design, with no development potential (mostly incorrect) and that the (early?) American fighters were all improved and upgraded without need for new designs (also mostly incorrect)
I think it is safe to say that if a manufacturer finds its product to be sufficiently different from its predecessor to warrant a new designation, it can be called a new aircraft. With some overlap, obviously.
 
The P-36 to P-40 thing has been gone over a bunch of times but basically, since the XP-40 was the 10th production P-36 fitted with a liquid cooled engine it wasn't really a new airplane.
As the P-40 gained weight the wing structure and other components were beefed up (and the tail lengthened, etc) the ability to turn a P-36 airframe into a late model P-40 goes away but much of the basic airframe remains and you can build the late model P-40 using much of the tooling (jigs/fixtures) used the build the P-36. Wing shape, area, type of construction was unchanged even if the thickness of a number of parts changed.

P-43 to P-47 has no such relationship. They look alike but the P-47 is much larger in all dimensions. Very few, if any parts, are interchangeable. Trying to build a 40 ft 9 in 300 sq ft wing on the jigs and fixtures used to build a 36ft in 223 sq ft wing is not going to go well (the cords are not the same so you can't even use the same ribs).


The Zero may not have been a dead end design. The Sakae may have been a dead end engine and the Japanese waited way too long to fit a different engine. Fitting the Kinsei engine in 1943/44 may have extended the high performance era of the Zero for a time.

Would the Spitfire have been a dead end design if RR had never developed the two stage Merlin and/or the Griffon?
You can't stick a Vulture or Saber in a Spitfire airframe.
 
I guess the main thrust of my comment, was that the fighters the US had in service in 1941 were not "improved and upgraded" so as to preclude the development of new aircraft, and that the A6M was the finest ship borne fighter in the world, until the introduction of the F6F in late 1943.
I never intended to split hairs as to what aircraft was developed from what, point well taken.
Neither the Wildcat, P-36, or P-40, or P-39 were world beaters, nor were they developed or improved into one
 
Actually, of the four: F4F, P-36, P-40 and P-39, the P-36 was a contemporary of "world beaters" (Bf109, Hurricane, etc.) when introduced.

During the Battle of France, it was the French Hawk 75s that made an accounting of Bf109s.
And it was a P-36, along with P-40's, that downed some A6M2s at Pearl Harbor - so even though it was a mid-30's design it was still a very capable type by 1940/1941.
 

While bearing in mind that the A6M was designed to be a CARRIER fighter the total production didn't need to be in the many thousands. That said, the A6M was NOT suitable for mass production. By 1942, the air war had changed a lot - what was an outstanding attacking carrier fighter in 1940 was not a great defensive land-based interceptor.

The Bf-109 and Spitfire of 1939/1940 proved capable of being upgraded and redesigned to take newer and more powerful engines - but their basic short range interceptor role did not change. Spitfires did not do so well as Seafires. I would suggest that the Bf-109T might had had issues with landing on carriers - since they had issues with landing on solid ground anyway.

So really, the only comparison that even goes close to apples versus apples is the F2A, F4F, Fulmar, and Roc. You can chuck in the hypothetical Bf-109T if you really like but the A6M will still stand out in terms of a long-range strike and escort fighter for carrier operations.
 
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